In celebration of May bike month, the Rhode Island Bicycle Coalition (RIBike) invites you to join guests from the New England region as well as local bike advocates at a three-part series addressing a wide range of bike-related topics. Learn about bike vacations, local advocacy efforts, bike touring 101, and much more!

Admission is FREE. Doors at 6pm (come early to grab food and drinks & mingle!), speakers at 6:30pm.

Mayor Taveras Announces Bicycle Repair Stations on Bike to Work Day

PROVIDENCE, RI – Mayor Angel Taveras this morning joined with the Rhode Island Bicycle Coalition and bicycle commuters from across Providence to take part in the City’s annual Bike to Work Day celebration. Mayor Taveras and bicycling advocates from his staff rode their bikes from the Mayor’s home in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood to the celebration in Burnside Park.

“In Providence, we are moving forward to create the necessary infrastructure for cyclists to make sure bicycling is a viable, affordable and healthy transportation choice for our residents,” said Mayor Taveras. “Bicycling and outdoor events like Cyclovía Providence provide an opportunity for residents from every corner of the City to exercise, have fun and enjoy all that Providence has to offer.”

The Rhode Island Bicycle Coalition’s annual Bike to Work Day event featured a commuter breakfast and coffee for participants, bike repairs and giveaways from local bike shops and vendors.

“The City of Providence has made great strides over the past couple of years toward making our city a more bike-friendly place to live, work, and play,” said Eric Weis, Chair of the city’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission. “Bike to Work Day is a great opportunity to celebrate those gains, and to encourage more of our neighbors to hop on a bike next time they need to commute to work, run an errand, or get some exercise.”

With spring in the air, the City of Providence and the RI Bicycle Coalition invite you to celebrate Bike to Work Day on Friday, May 16th as part of National Bike Month. Mayor Taveras urges everyone to bike to work or try cycling for fun, fitness or transportation. Free coffee and food will be provided to all participants at Burnside Park. Other activities include bike repair, vendors, and a raffle. Mayor Taveras will also announce the 2014 Providence Cyclovias!

In the hysteria that predated the launch of New York’s bike-sharing system last year, many critics cried that the bikes would make the city’s streets less safe. All those cyclists wouldn’t be wearing helmets! They’d have no insurance! Accidents would skyrocket, and with them lawsuits against the city. Fatalities would triple!

The system’s safety record quickly turned out to be less sensational. But this was as bike advocates expected. Biking — as with walking — offers a prime example of the power of crowds. As more people bike and walk, cycling and pedestrian fatalities actually decline. That’s because the more people bike and walk, the more drivers become attuned to their presence (either on sidewalks or road shoulders), and the more cities are likely to invest in the kind of infrastructure explicitly meant to protect them (all of which further encourages more cyclists and pedestrians).

Northeastern University professor Stephanie Pollack has studied gentrification around transit stops across the country, and she’s found that one of the biggest mistakes municipalities make is requiring too much parking. Pollack’s data show that, given the choice, residents will self-select: Heavy drivers choose to live in homes that provide parking, and residents who don’t own cars will choose transit-oriented, low-parking homes. This is especially true for renters. So the answer to an urban parking crunch isn’t adding supply. It’s recognizing that parking demand isn’t monolithic. Urban parking is a choice, and if Boston really does have too many cars already, the answer isn’t to build room for more.

Mayor Taveras Kicks Off Citywide Springtime Street Sweeping Program

Temporary ‘alternate side of the street’ parking rules will be in effect to accommodate aggressive street sweeping schedule

PROVIDENCE, RI – Mayor Angel Taveras kicked off a citywide street sweeping program after a snowy winter that left sand and debris on roads throughout Providence. Ward 7 City Councilman John Igliozzi joined Mayor Taveras to kick off the street sweeping initiative in the city’s Silver Lake neighborhood.

“I am pleased to begin the process of cleaning Providence’s streets after a long winter,” said Mayor Taveras. “Crews will be working on an aggressive schedule to give our Capital City the spring cleaning it needs and deserves.”

Cleaning crews will work first shift and third shift for six weeks to sweep all streets in Providence, making roads more passable for bicyclists and pedestrians. Crews will simultaneously begin work to sweep main streets and clean neighborhood roads throughout the city. The Department of Public Works has hired an outside vendor to supplement the city’s street sweeping resources.

“Sweeping all city streets will not only enhance the appearance of our neighborhoods, but will make it easier for residents to walk and bike on our roads,” Councilman Igliozzi said.

We believe that as proposed, these plans do little to increase access to all users; moreover, the decision to start this work at James Street even as the I-195 Commission has issued specific developer criteria for that stretch of road and riverfront is unfortunate in the extreme. It demonstrates yet again a failure to implement both the city’s and the state’s goals for complete streets and integrated transportation into the actual operations of their agencies.

Paolino Properties has purchased a package of three high-profile properties in Providence’s Financial District for $60 million, the company announced Wednesday.

The acquisitions include the 20-story tower at 100 Westminster St., the five-story building next door at 30 Kennedy Plaza and the Weybosset Street Metropark lot across the street that features the propped-up façade of the former Providence National Bank Building.

The article goes into plans for the buildings and vacant parcel which all sound great, look at me, I’m all surprised over here. One wonders, and one is not just me people are talking, where the former Mayor is getting funds for all this. Wonders about funding instill fears about the viability of the proposed plans. Fingers crossed good things happen, would be very good for Kennedy Plaza as well as Westminster Street.

The next mayor must re-envision our city streets by supporting protected bike lanes. Westminster on the West Side is the first place Providence should start the transformation.

Providence does not have cavernous streets like Los Angeles, but many of its streets are much wider than streets in other East Coast cities, but without bike infrastructure. While Philadelphia has buffered bike lanes that are eight feet wide on streets that are around twenty-four feet wide, there are no such lanes on the West Side’s Westminster Street, which is about forty feet wide. The excuse that we don’t have room for infrastructure that will make more people feel safe on bikes has to be set aside.

Bring your bicycle and enjoy the new bike paths along Pleasant Valley Parkway!

The Bike Providence plan will guide the investment of future funding for the Providence bicycle network, promote a bicycle-friendly culture, set priorities for bicycling improvements, and expand the citywide network. The public comment period for the plan will continue through Friday, November 22, 2013.

This project is funded by a Planning Challenge Grant from the Rhode Island Division of Planning.

For more information contact Dave Everett, Department of Planning and Development, (401) 680-8520 or deverett@providencri.com.

Full disclosure: I am a member of the Providence Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission.

In five auto lane widths of roadway you can see room for a separated cycle track, automobile traffic, bus and streetcar traffic, dedicated turn lanes, and it looks like maybe some parking (plus ample sidewalks with trees). It really shows how you can pack a lot of transportation modality into a not too big roadway. Of course Providence is a place where we have a lot of not too big roadways.